Where every click is a journey and every impression counts.
An experimental method to measure whether your marketing actually caused an outcome or if it would have happened anyway. It's the uncomfortable question every CMO avoids: did we waste our money?
Serving different content or ads based on where someone is located, from country-level down to 'currently standing in your competitor's parking lot.' It's location-based marketing that's only slightly creepy.
A large, eye-catching advertisement displayed across a website, usually with the subtlety of a marching band at a library. These digital flags wave desperately for attention, rotating between promises of free stuff and vague warnings about things you definitely don't want to happen to your computer.
The measurable outcome or impact of a marketing campaign, creative execution, or strategic initiative. Basically, the proof that your brilliant idea actually moved the needle, or didn't.
The mechanical or digital process of reproducing content—whether text, images, or integrated circuits—onto a surface or substrate. In marketing, the actual production phase where your meticulously designed campaigns finally become tangible.
In marketing, the much-hyped 'trickle-down effect'—the theory that benefits bestowed upon the wealthy will eventually drip down to the poor, despite all evidence suggesting they mostly just pool at the top. Also, literal trickling of fluids.
The process of building relationships with prospects before they're ready to buy, which is either patience or the definition of wasting time depending on your outlook.
A lead that meets your predetermined criteria for being a good potential customer, usually based on fit and interest level. It's a lead that won't waste your sales team's time (in theory).
A semi-fictional character representing your ideal customer—basically a detailed stereotype you convince yourself is data-driven.
The act of broadcasting information about goods and services with the persistent energy of a door-to-door salesman who's discovered social media. It's the continuous cycle of creating awareness through paid channels, organic content, and those weirdly targeted ads that make you wonder what algorithm knows about you.
The tendency to overcredit one marketing channel while ignoring others' contributions. It's confirmation bias's sleazy cousin who always shows up to steal the spotlight.
A customer endorsement weaponized for marketing purposes—genuine or conveniently edited praise that companies display to convince skeptical prospects that their product actually works. In its purest form, it's an unprompted tribute; in reality, it's often solicited, incentivized, or cherry-picked from thousands of responses. The video testimonial is its most powerful evolution, because nothing says authentic like professional lighting and a lapel mic.
A platform that manages all the tracking pixels, analytics tags, and marketing scripts on your website through one interface, preventing your site from becoming a slow-loading surveillance nightmare. Because manually updating 47 different tracking codes is nobody's idea of fun.
The predicted total revenue a customer will generate over their entire relationship with your business, used to justify spending obscene amounts on acquisition. Abbreviated as LTV or CLV, because marketers love acronyms almost as much as optimistic financial projections.
Limiting how many times the same person sees your ad, based on the radical notion that showing someone the same message 47 times in one day might be counterproductive. It's the marketing equivalent of knowing when to stop talking.
Google's report card for your ads, rating relevance, landing page quality, and expected click-through rate to determine how much you pay and where you appear. It's the algorithm's way of rewarding good behavior and punishing lazy advertising.
A self-reinforcing cycle where outputs of a system become inputs that drive further growth, creating a compounding effect. It's like a marketing perpetual motion machine, except these sometimes actually work.
A good or service created and sold to customers; the physical or digital manifestation of your company's promise wrapped in packaging and shipped out the door.
The spoken or written voice guiding the audience through a story, explanation, or advertisement. Good narration feels conversational and trustworthy; bad narration sounds like a robot reading a car title disclaimer at 2am. It's the difference between 'I want to listen to this person' and 'I want to mute this immediately.'
An opinion piece where a publication's editors climb onto their soapbox to tell readers what to think about current events, traditionally unsigned to represent the institution's collective wisdom (or bias). In media, it's also the content side of the business—the journalism and creative work, as opposed to the advertising that actually pays for everything. Editorial calendars plan this content, while editorial independence is the increasingly quaint notion that advertisers don't influence it.
The measure of whether your marketing actually caused additional sales or just took credit for purchases that would've happened anyway. It's the uncomfortable question that keeps attribution models honest and marketers defensive.
Advertising disguised as editorial content, marked with tiny disclaimers that readers routinely ignore while consuming what they think is journalism. It's the art of selling things to people who came for articles, not ads.
Social media personalities with 1,000-100,000 followers who command higher engagement rates than celebrities and charge less than your quarterly coffee budget. They're the proof that smaller, engaged audiences beat massive, apathetic ones.
A free resource or incentive offered to prospects in exchange for their contact information, typically email addresses. It's bribery, but the business development team prefers to call it 'value exchange.'